#Rogue fable iii wand vs staff plus

The swords and knives of the defenders shone and flickered. The whole hill was crowned with dazzling light. The fire leapt from tree-top to tree-top. There was a roar and a crackle, and the tree above him burst into a leaf and bloom of blinding flame. 'Naur an edraith ammen! Naur dan i ngaurhoth!' he cried. It flared with a sudden white radiance like lightning and his voice rolled like thunder. High in the air he tossed the blazing brand. Stooping like a cloud, he lifted a burning branch and strode to meet the wolves. In the wavering firelight Gandalf seemed suddenly to grow: he rose up, a great menacing shape like the monument of some ancient king of stone set upon a hill. Fly, if you value your foul skin! I will shrivel you from tail to snout, if you come within this ring.'. Gandalf stood up and strode forward, holding his staff aloft.

At once a great spout of green and blue flame sprang out, and the wood flared and sputtered. Picking up a faggot he held it aloft for a moment, and then with a word of command, naur an edraith ammen!, he thrust the end of his staff into the midst of it. The bridge cracked.Īt last reluctantly Gandalf himself took a hand. A blinding sheet of white flame sprang up. The staff broke asunder and fell from his hand. Gandalf does appear to use his staff for specific magical purposes - although we don't know what the staff added to his innate powers in any of these situations:Īt that moment Gandalf lifted his staff, and crying aloud he smote the bridge before him. Instances in which Gandalf's staff appears to be used for magic: Wormtongue’s insistence that Gandalf be forced to leave his staff at Theoden’s door may thus have been a naive attempt to deprive Gandalf of his power because Wormtongue did not understand the true nature of the Istari. In my opinion a wizard’s staff was a symbol of his office - that is, of his role as an emissary from the Valar. Tolkien did not explain the significance of the Istari’s staves in any writings that have been published to date, but they clearly held symbolic value since Gandalf broke Saruman’s staff and Saruman accused Gandalf of seeking to collect the staves of the “Five Wizards”. Gandalf ultimately defeated the Balrog without his staff, so it should be clear to everyone that he did not need his staff in order to use his Maiaric power. However, Gandalf also destroyed his staff when he broke the bridge of Khazad-dum and he was still able to engage in a multi-day battle with the Balrog, in which one or both of them unleashed great power against the other. It is clear from a few scenes in the story that Gandalf used his staff (such as to light fires, create a light by which to see in Moria, etc.) for “magical” purposes. This issue is hotly debated, but Tolkien scholar Michael Martinez believes that staves are purely symbolic: The fact that Saruman let Gandalf keep his staff when he was imprisoned suggests that Saruman knew Gandalf couldn't do anything useful with the staff that he wouldn't have been able to do without the staff.

This would be very difficult to explain, if Saruman had reason to believe that Gandalf was more powerful with his staff than without it. Exactly how much it aided him in the use of magic is unknown, but Gríma Wormtongue tried to forbid Gandalf from bringing it into Edoras, clearly under the impression that without it Gandalf's power would be limited.īut when Saruman imprisons Gandalf atop Orthanc, he doesn't take away Gandalf's staff. At times it appeared to focus or extend his powers, such as when it emanated light. It is unknown whether Gandalf required his staff to exercise certain powers. We don't know what the staves in Tolkien's works actually do, in terms of the use of magic. Faustus and his 'wand' in woodcuts from 1620 Random House Kernerman Webster's College Dictionary a rod or staff carried as an emblem of one's office or authority. The fact that Tolkien sometimes described Gandalf's staff as a 'wand' supports the idea that he didn't see much of a difference between the two terms.ġ. He would have known that the word 'wand' was historically associated with sticks much larger than Harry Potter wands - in other words, a wand was a staff, and a staff was a wand.

#Rogue fable iii wand vs staff plus

TL DR: Because staves can do everything wands can do, plus some other stuff.įirst off, it is worth noting that Tolkien was a philologist (a scholar of language), and loved archaic terms.